Part 1

In my Flight Path, I identified instructional design, LMS, online assessment, mobile learning, and video conferencing as the areas I wanted to focus on.

In terms of instructional design, I hoped to get a better understanding of instructional design principles and learn how to apply ADDIE and Agile models to online training courses. Reading the Unit 1 readings gave me a good introduction to ADDIE and Agile models and helped me better understand when each might be applied. I found the article on backward design and designing courses for significant learning very useful and I could apply these immediately to my LMS course as well as to my teaching contexts.

I also wanted to become exposed to a wide variety of LMS, get experience designing content for them and feel more confident making recommendations about LMS selection. The sequence of the assignments in the course progressed well, allowing me to learn a lot about the general limitations and affordances of Blackboard, Moodle, Eliademy and edX by having to make an informed selection of an LMS for a particular university’s needs. After that, I chose to explore Blackboard further as I wanted to gain familiarity with this, as I will likely need to use Blackboard in the near future for my courses. I learned more about how to improve user experience by designing clear and logical learning paths, how to design digital content, and how to try to maximize interaction and active learning. By using the backward design to establish learning outcomes, I ensured the alignment of activities and subsequent assessments.

I hoped to learn about assessment practices and tools for online assessment and student ePortfolios. The articles by Bates (2014), Gibbs & Simpson (2005) and Jenkins (2004) gave me a good introduction to types of assessment and implications for instructors and students and strategies to keep in mind when trying to promote deeper and more active student learning. By engaging with WordPress to create my course ePortfolio, I gained more of an appreciation for self-reflection and can imagine incorporating it in my language classes. I would feel much more confident now training students how to use WordPress for this purpose.

In terms of mobile learning, I planned to explore the affordances and limitations of mobile tools for language learning, particularly alternatives to Voicethread. I explored voice recording options on Blackboard, but didn’t find them as useful as Voicethread. I would like to explore more alternatives on my own. More broadly this course motivated me to use mobile technology in my classes. I felt inspired when learning about new uses for mobile devices, particularly when learning about game based learning through the discussion of Dilemma 1944. I would be very interested in taking further courses exploring mobile learning and game based learning.

Finally, I sought to compare video conferencing platforms and be able to make more informed choices about selection. I did not investigate this area during this class. It is something I would like to focus on more in the future.

Part 2

I gained a lot more experience working with digital tools Emaze, Videoscribe and Haiku Deck to create content. I also got exposed to other tools from exploring the tools listed as resources for digital stories and seeing how classmates used some of them to create their digital stories. I will experiment with creating content with more of these tools. I’m particularly interested in testing out GoAnimate.

Part 3

I found the class to have an excellent selection of reading materials. The discussion themes and questions were very relevant and promoted reflection and engagement with interesting topics. They motivated me to read articles thoroughly, so I would be able to contribute. Doing group work for the first assignment was a good introduction for me to the program. I felt very intimidated at first since this was my first course in the program. However, it motivated me to do a lot of independent research and I realized I was able to discuss and negotiate effectively with my group members. That said, I also found the group work experience frustrating at times and overall much preferred the opportunity to work solo on the second and third assignments. The range of LMS offered was sufficient for me since I had never had the experience of using LMS in the role of instructor or designer before. I’m not sure though why is needs to be limited to those options instead of enabling Ss to choose from a wider range. I now feel very comfortable and knowledgeable about Bb after Assignments 1, 2, 3. Research for assignment 1 also gave me an understanding of how Bb compares with other LMS and I feel I know how to go about learning to use the others. I would have liked to have gotten more practice designing content for Moodle during this course, but think that would have been a challenge given the timeframe. Having open access to content on WordPress was wonderful and I’m sure I’ll use it to access readings and links after the course. In terms of suggestions for improvements, I found it somewhat overwhelming to have a discussion posting due on the same week as the major assignments. I learned a great deal from this course that I think will be very relevant for my current and future endeavours.